about me:

Hi, I’m Kris Holechek Peters (Cramer) and I am the author of six cookbooks, with one more on the way: The Damn Tasty! Vegan Baking Guide (2007, self-published, no longer in print),The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes (2009, Ulysses Press), Have Your Cake and Vegan Too (2011, Ulysses Press) and the I Heart Trader Joe’s Vegetarian Cookbook, Vegan Desserts in Jars (2013, Ulysses Press), Vegan Ice Cream Sandwiches (2014, Ulysses Press) and Bringing Home the Seitan (Ulysses Press, 2016). I am a vegan baking fool currently residing in St. Paul, MN. When I’m not baking, I’m teaching yoga, reading, practicing yoga, writing or spending time with my family. Things I like include: peanut butter and chocolate, kitten tummies and British television. Things I don’t like include: getting up-charged for soy milk at coffee shops or the Oxford comma.

I have been baking since the first moment I was allowed into the kitchen. My great-grandmother and my aunt were my foodie role models growing up and I learned countless lessons from them in the kitchen, both in relationship to the preparation of food and about food as communion. Our family life revolved around someone puttering around in the kitchen while everyone else sat around, chatting, laughing and sampling the cook’s inventions.

I believe in the importance of food to both family and culture, which is why creating mind-blowing vegan cuisine, specifically baking, has been so important to me. When we sit down with others and share food, a bond is formed. And if that food is lackluster, well, that’s just downright sad. Amazing vegan food is not only possible, it’s easy! Delicious food transforms skeptics from thinking, “Vegan cookies? Yuck, what’s in those? That’s gross.” to “Heck, these are great! What else you got?”

I believe that no lifestyle or food intolerance should keep people from having familiar treats nor should it keep them from sharing their treats with those around them. My end goal is to make things delicious, from scratch, and so authentic that no one can tell it’s “different”. However, mixed in there are plenty of healthy baked goods and regular foods to tie you over until the next special occasion when you bust out all of the fat and sugar.

This site is an archive, as I have stopped actively blogging as of the end of 2012. This doesn’t mean I’ve disappeared, as I’m continuing to craft tasty treats to share with you in upcoming books. As always, feel free to contact me.

I couldn’t find an “email me” link, so leaving a comment here. I love your blog and the new cookbook looks great. The rest is pro-forma (but heartfelt) because I’m emailing to 500 places.

Hi, this is Gary Loewenthal from Compassion for Animals, a fairly new DC-based grassroots animal advocacy group (www.compassion4animals.org – under construction). I wanted to invite you to participate in a rather large project we’re putting together: the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale, June 20 thru June 28 (www.veganbakesale.org).

The idea is simple: Groups across the globe hold vegan bake sales during that period. Participating groups can do whatever they want with the proceeds. Compassion for Animals is coordinating global publicity for the event, and will leverage the event and our quasi-good media connections to get positive mainstream press about the event and about the health, environmental, ethical, and spiritual benefits of a plant-based diet.

Hi Kris – I just bought your Best 100 Vegan Baking Recipes book and had a question about one of the cookie recipes. In the cookbook your Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe ingredients list does not include a measurement for milk, however the instructions indicate that milk should be mixed in with the pumpkin. Could you please tell me whether milk should be a part of the recipe or not, and if so, how much.